


Simply Put

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: The Tomorrow People (1973)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earth logic is a contradiction in terms. Pre-series. When John first met Carol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simply Put

Her name was Carol Collins.

 

It snowed hard that year. For some reason, the winter decided to have an extra go at it. So she walked home from school in her fur-lined coat, boots over her best shoes.

 

John had followed her home from school. He watched from across the street, sitting on someone's stoop, staring at the Griffith Girls' College.

 

She was thinking about Shakespeare, or at least, trying to memorize Shakespeare. She wanted to get very good marks because it was her last term before university. John could tell, because her thoughts bounced around in his head. He knew they weren't his, because he'd never once read Julius Caesar. But now he could say, with some certainty: "pardon me, o, thou bleeding piece of earth..." and know that Antony had said them. He also knew that Antony, apparently, was much more eloquent than Brutus.

 

Carol Collins didn't like the play at all. She did, however, secretly enjoy Jane Austen novels. And even once a Charlotte Bronte novel. Although not the one where everyone died.

 

Finally he got the courage to speak up, and he said, "If it were so, it was a greveous Fault, and greveously hath Caesar answer'd it."

 

She turned to him and he took a step back. Her cheeks were red and frost bitten. The white fur of her collar was all around her face and the snow was trapped in her hair.

 

It was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

 

"Excuse me?"

 

"I-it's Shakespeare, that's what you're reciting, isn't it?" he stammered, nervously.

 

"Oh, dear, I was saying it out loud, wasn't I? I must've looked like a complete nutter," she replied, with a shy smile.

 

John only had the courage to nod.

****

"I just couldn't do it, TIM," John said, taking off his coat, his gloves, and his hat. "What was I supposed to say? That I heard her private thoughts?"

 

"I think that there may be another reason that you did not approach her further, John," TIM answered, his voice - which had been pleasantly monotone on Sophia - was warped by John's somewhat amateur attempts at electronic manipulation, but seethed suspicion all the same.

 

John smiled down at his hat and gloves.

 

"Well, she is a very lovely girl."

 

"All the more reason to approach her. Although, you must get her father's approval. That is the custom on Earth, is it not?"

 

John shook his head and put his hand over his eyes.

 

"What have you been reading, TIM?"

 

"Since you mentioned that Carol is fond of certain authors, I took the liberty of scanning these books. They have been very helpful in deciphering Earth culture. I was not aware that there was such a gender barrier in your society."

 

"The books you've been reading are hundreds of years old, TIM."

 

"Then why do you continue to read them? Is writing a book so rare on Earth that every one of them must be preserved?"

 

"Well, no. There are millions of books on Earth about every possible subject, but when an author has written a particularly good book or a book that is very famous, we want our children to know about it, so we teach them in the schools. Then they teach their children. And on it goes. We have new books. Occasionally, those new books also get taught in the schools."

 

"I see. So a person's perception of human literature is highly influenced by their matriculation?"

 

"Yes, they're influenced by school. Not just literature, either. Science. Math. History."

 

"Who decides which books are great and which are not? Who decides what will be taught in schools."

 

"Teachers, people who run the schools."

 

"If they decide what children will think of the world, why are they not held in higher regard? Why are they not financially compensated to a greater degree?"

 

John laughed. "You may yet be too logical to understand our culture, TIM. We're not like the Sophians. We don't understand why we do the things we do. We barely understand ourselves."

 

"You must approach Carol tomorrow, and tell her what she is. If she does not know soon, the consequences could be grave."

 

"Her name is Carol Collins, TIM."

 

"Is it necessary to mention her surname when discussing her?"

 

"Until we know her better, it is. In polite society, you call a person by either Mr., Mrs., or Ms., and their surname or you call them by both names, until they ask you to. It's rude to assume familiarity where there is none."

 

"Nevertheless, John, you must tell her what she is. For her sake."

 

"Of course, TIM."

****

John followed Carol home from school again the next day.

 

She noticed him this time, and was suspicious. She walked faster and John walked faster to keep up with her.

 

All the time, John could hear her internal panic. She feared what he might do. She also feared what her father might do if he caught her anywhere near a boy.

 

So he called out to her, "Carol Collins! It's all right, I won't harm you."

 

She turned around and gasped. "How did you know my name? Who are you?"

 

Carol kept walking backwards and John followed her, slowly.

 

"Ms. Collins, there's something I've got to tell you. I can hear your thoughts."

 

She stopped. "What?"

 

"Yes, it's all right. I can hear your thoughts. I'm telepathic, like you. You're just like me, Ms. Collins."

 

Carol looked over her shoulder to judge how far it would take her to run to the safety of her house.

 

"You stay away from me, you loony! Take another step and I'll scream, I'll call the police!"

 

John took just one step. Carol threw her books at him and ran as fast as she could.

 

John picked up her books and walked away, until he was alone enough to disappear back to the Lab.

 

He held her books, bound by a thin leather strap, in his arms and decided he needed to have a better name for what he was doing. He needed a better name for everything.

****

It was late before John looked up and realized that he'd been reading all of Carol's schoolbooks, and especially her exercise book.

 

She had an affinity for doodling red hearts above the 'i' in Collins, and she had several creatively folded notes written in sloppy cursive, from some girl named Cathy.

 

"She's a good pupil," John told TIM, closing Carol's exercise book. "I suppose I should return her books."

 

"You must tell her, John. You cannot give up."

 

"I told her, TIM. She called me a loony. What else is there to do?"

 

"Perhaps if you send her a message, she will be more receptive."

 

"What kind of message?"

 

"A message in a dream. Among the telepathic species on the Trig, dreams are considered a most efficient means of communication."

 

John dreamed that night, when he slept in the Lab.

 

He envisioned her in the snow, with apple red cheeks and snow in her hair. And there they stood, on the street where Carol Collins lived, staring at each other.

 

"You shouldn't be afraid of me," John said to her. "I'm the same as you are. We're special, you and I. We can do things."

 

Carol hugged herself. "I'm frightened by this. I don't want to be different."

 

"I didn't say different, I said special."

 

"It's the same thing. It's no good being different now-a-days. It'll only bring trouble. Go away. I don't want to be special."

 

Carol turned her back on John.

 

"You don't have a choice!" John called after her. "You are special, whether you want to be or not. But I can help you, I can teach you to use your abilities, your powers."

 

Carol turned around and asked, with a careful tone, "Powers?"

 

"Yes. I'm in your head, right now, because both of us are telepathic. We can disappear and reappear at will. We can move objects just by thinking of it. I could teach you how to do all of these things. There are millions of advanced civilizations out there, and you can meet them, talk with them. It's called the Trig. Think of it all, Carol Collins. Think of it. I could show it all to you, if you'll just trust me."

 

Carol slanted her head a little and walked a few steps towards him, as though to get a better look. "You're alone, aren't you? That's why you followed me home, that's why you're so desperate. You're lonely."

 

"In a sense, yes."

 

"In every sense."

 

"Are you in or aren't you?" John asked, petulantly.

 

"I haven't decided."

 

"I'll bring your books to you tomorrow," John told her.

 

He turned his back on her and walked until he was awake.

****

John appeared in the alleyway across from Carol's school, and waited for her. He hugged the books close.

 

She saw him immediately, but she stood around with some of her friends. Her thoughts were a patchwork of conversation with her friends and thoughts about

 

John and Shakespeare. What she thought of the man in the brown coat, who'd followed her home from school and whether she had friends, Romans, and countrymen in the right order. It could be Friends, countrymen, Romans.

 

Carol didn't much care for Shakespeare. Or Cindy Thorne, either, who apparently was a little tart to who liked to steal other people's blokes. And her lip rouge made her look cheap, too. Too much blue eye shadow. Everyone knew Cindy wasn't really a blonde.

 

[Friends, Romans, countrymen. That's the right order, Carol Collins,] John said to her, grabbing her attention away from her friends.

 

John saw Carol touch one of her friends on the arm and then cross the street to him. Her friends stared at them, giggling.

 

"Did you make a decision?" he asked, holding out her books to her.

 

"I want to know more," she told him. She didn't take the books. "Walk with me and carry my books. We'll talk about this, if you promise not to try any funny business."

 

"I promise that my business will be completely solemn," John pledged, with a thin smile.

 

"I hope we're not all smarty-pantses like you," Carol sniped with a very big smile. "I told my friends you had a crush on me."

 

"I don't."

 

"I know that. But I had to tell them something. Besides, it'll look very good if I'm with an older boy, you know, a boy that's at university."

 

"But I'm not."

 

"I know that, but it sounds good anyway."

 

John shrugged and held Carol's books under one arm and put the other hand in his coat pocket. She hooked her arm around his and started walking.

 

"Won't your father be angry?"

 

"My father's always on about something. We get into a row just about everyday. I might as well have some fun. Besides, we're not going to my flat."

 

"Where are we going?"

 

"The chip shop. My best friend Jenny works there. She'll give us fish for free, as long as Tom isn't there watching."

 

"Then I suppose we'll go to the chip shop," John conceded. Carol leaned against him slightly.

 

"So what do you call us? What do you call our powers? They must have a name."

 

"No, they don't. I've only know about it for a year or so. There are lots of alien names for us. The Sophians call us Ka'sh-la-di. Some call us Vesh. The Moradians call us Dienla Stach."

 

"Cash-laddie. That sound really exotic, like Arabic or Oriental or something. What does it mean?"

 

"Literally? The People of the Future. Or Tomorrow. Depending on the dialect."

 

"Tomorrow People?"

 

"I supposed it could translate like that. It does have a bit of a ring to it, doesn't it?"

 

"Yes. Tomorrow People. And when you came out of thin air, what is that?"

 

"It doesn't have a name either. Technically it's called teleportation. We don't come out of thin air. We're able to enter hyperspace and short cut through normal time-space. If the entire world is an apple, we can go through the middle of the apple instead of having to go all the way outside. Except that the surface of the apple is really a crude representation of normal-space time, and hyperspace really doesn't have substance. It's not as though we're really going through anything. In fact, nothing would be a more accurate description."

 

"Stop!"

 

John even stopped walked and stared over at her. "What's wrong?"

 

"I'm finished with school already. I just asked what it was not, now how it worked. I don't really care for all that science business."

 

"Nothing you learn in college is even close to what we're capable of. No science on Earth is advanced enough to comprehend it. It's rather a lot more than all that science business," John said in stern, patronizing voice.

 

"I know that. I'm not a small child. I just said that science isn't my cup of tea. I understand what you're saying. You're saying that we take the short way 'round things. That going a long distance for us is just like taking a jaunt, isn't it?"

 

"Yes. A teleport is like a jaunt. We simply jaunt in between places."

 

Carol leaned on him again. "I think I like you, John. You're a very serious type, always thinking big thoughts, aren't you?"

 

"I suppose I could be described that way."

 

"You really ought to loosen up, have some fun."

 

"Science is fun for me."

 

"Like I said, you're the serious type. But anyway. So we've got lots of very fantastic powers. What now?"

 

"I don't think that this would be the best place to show you."

 

John turned into the first alleyway he saw and Carol snickered. "It's like we're secret agents!"

 

[TIM, we're coming to the Lab,] John telepathed.

 

The snow was blowing hard enough so that the colored lights were hidden.

 

Carol gasped and grabbed John's arm in a very tight grip. "Oh my, where have we gone?"

 

"This is the Lab. And this," John told her, gesturing at the ceiling, "Is TIM. He's an artificial intelligence from the planet Sophia."

 

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Collins," TIM said.

 

Carol shrieked and put her hand over her mouth. "It talks! The bloody thing talks!"

 

John stared at her disapprovingly. She looked apologetic when she realized what she'd said.

 

"Simply put," John said, disengaging from Carol's grip and handing Carol her books, "We can do anything but kill another person. It's not really even a choice of ours, it's just how it is. And our purpose is to use our powers to bring peace to this planet. To stop the violence and the destruction. Only, we mustn't tell them who we are, or let them know we have special powers. We must stay secret."

 

"Why? Why can't we just tell them to stop?"

 

John shook his head.

 

"Ms. Collins," Tim interrupted, before John had the chance.

 

"Oh, do call me Carol."

 

"I will. As I was saying, Carol - I have been on Earth for some time now, and while your plan is logical, I do not believe anything on this planet is quite that simple."

 

\- END -


End file.
